ZMskyuza

@ttEstiNg2023, member from Dec. 30, 2023
Hedy Lamarr quote: “Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”
Hedy Lamarr photo

“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”

Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000) Austrian-American actress and co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum communications and freq…

As quoted in The Stars (1962) by Richard Schickel

Isaac Asimov photo

“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) edited by Geoff Tibballs, p. 299
General sources

David Lynch photo

“I like the saying "The world is as you are."”

The Circle, p. 21
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Context: I like the saying "The world is as you are." And I think films are as you are. That's why, although the frames of a film are always the same — the same number, in the same sequence, with the same sounds — every screening is different. The difference is sometimes subtle but it's there. It depends on the audience. There is a circle that goes from the audience to the film and back. Each person is looking and thinking and feeling and coming up with his or her own sense of things. And it's probably different from what I fell in love with.
So you don’t know how it's going to hit people. But if you thought about how it's going to hit people, or if it's going to hurt someone, or if it's going to do this or do that, then you would have to stop making films. You just do these things that you fall in love with, and you never know what's going to happen.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Quoted in 3:439 Herndon's Lincoln (1890), p. 439 http://books.google.com/books?id=rywOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA439&dq=%22when+i+do+good+i+feel+good%22: Inasmuch as he was so often a candidate for public office Mr. Lincoln said as little about his religious code as possible, especially if he failed to coincide with the orthodox world. In illustration of his religious code I once heard him say that it was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a church meeting, and who said: "When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion."
Posthumous attributions

Abraham Lincoln photo

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
John Galsworthy photo

“Love has no age, no limit; and no death.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Likely spurious quote, UNVERIFIED ATTRIBUTE - Quoted in The Lexington Observer & Reporter (16 June 1864)
1860s
Variant: I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

José Rizal photo

“He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and a smelly fish.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

This has long been attributed to Rizal as part of a poem, titled Sa Aking Mga Kabata (To My Fellow Children), he wrote at the age of 8, as quoted in " Community Celebrates Rizal Day" in Asian Journal USA (31 December 2007) http://asianjournalusa.com/community-celebrates-rizal-day-p3868-95.htm, but this has become disputed as highly unlikely in "Did young Rizal really write poem for children?" by Ambeth R. Ocampo, in Philippine Daily Inquirer (22 August 22 2011) http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/45479/did-young-rizal-really-write-poem-for-children
Disputed

Bobby Fischer photo

“Yeah, there are too many Jews in chess. They seem to have taken away the class of the game. They don't seem to dress so nicely, you know. That's what I don't like.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1960s, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master (1961)

Bobby Fischer photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This quote is often misattributed to Lincoln. The earliest instance that Quote Investigator could locate was "in an advertisement in 1947 for a book about aging by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D". The advertisement for “The Second Forty Years” which ran in the Chicago Tribune newspaper read like this: The important thing to you is not how many years in your life, but how much life in your years! (Compare 1947 March 16, Chicago Tribune, “How Long Do You Plan to Live?”, [Advertisement for the book "The Second Forty Years" by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D.], p. C7, Chicago, Illinois. (ProQuest)). Source of misattribution: It’s Not the Years in Your Life That Count. It’s the Life in Your Years - Abraham Lincoln? Adlai Stevenson? Edward J. Stieglitz? Anonymous? by Quote Investigator on July 14, 2012 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/14/life-years-count/
To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run.
Adlai Stevenson II, Address at Princeton University, "The Educated Citizen" (22 March 1954) http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/mudd/online_ex/stevenson/adlai1954.html. This has also been paraphrased "What matters most is not the years in your life, but the life in your years" and misattributed to Abraham Lincoln and Mae West.
Adlai Stevenson II, "If I Were Twenty-One" in Coronet (December 1955).
Misattributed
Variant: It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

This is probably the most famous of apparently apocryphal remarks attributed to Lincoln. Despite it being cited variously as from an 1856 speech, or a September 1858 speech in Clinton, Illinois, there are no known contemporary records or accounts substantiating that he ever made the statement. The earliest known appearance is October 29, 1886 in the Milwaukee Daily Journal http://anotherhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/fooling-people-earlier.html. It later appeared in the New York Times on August 26 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30817FF3E5413738DDDAF0A94D0405B8784F0D3 and August 27 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00E15FF3E5413738DDDAE0A94D0405B8784F0D3, 1887. The saying was repeated several times in newspaper editorials later in 1887. In 1888 and, especially, 1889, the saying became commonplace, used in speeches, advertisements, and on portraits of Lincoln. In 1905 and later, there were attempts to find contemporaries of Lincoln who could recall Lincoln saying this. Historians have not, generally, found these accounts convincing. For more information see two articles in For the People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association, "'You Can Fool All of the People' Lincoln Never Said That", by Thomas F. Schwartz ( V. 5, #4, Winter 2003, p. 1 http://abrahamlincolnassociation.org/Newsletters/5-4.pdf) and "A New Look at 'You Can Fool All of the People'" by David B. Parker ( V. 7, #3, Autumn 2005, p. 1 http://abrahamlincolnassociation.org/Newsletters/7-3.pdf); also the talk page. The statement has also sometimes been attributed to P. T. Barnum, although no references to this have been found from the nineteenth century.
Variants:
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
You can fool all the people some time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time.
Disputed

Bill Gates photo

“Choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Sometimes quoted with "difficult" instead of "hard".
A similar thought was expressed by automobile executive Clarence Bleicher in 1947 (before Bill Gates was born): "if you get a tough job, one that is hard, and you haven’t got a way to make it easy, put a lazy man on it, and after 10 days he will have an easy way to do it".
Misattributed
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/

Bobby Fischer photo
Bobby Fischer photo
Bobby Fischer photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“It's true hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take the chance?”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

On his relaxed approach to work, as quoted in Ronald Reagan: The Presidential Portfolio : a History Illustrated from the Collection of the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum (2001) by Lou Cannon
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo